Football’s coming home….

It’s a well know fact that every two years the British media manages to get a large percentage of the nation to believe in something completely ridiculous. Every two years we allow ourselves to dream, to hope, to believe. Despite all evidence to the contrary, we manage to get excited, think the unthinkable. This time it will be different, this time we will defeat the odds and win a major tournament. Every European Cup and each World cup we experience the ridiculous belief that we will win…..

….like we did in 1966.

1966.

The year that all English men hold on to. The year that we won our one and only World Cup (and yes German readers – it did cross the line and we did win!) The year that we are talking about when we sang “30 years of hurt” as we tried to win the Euros in 1996 and then “No more years of hurt” at the 1998 World Cup

It a great national anthem, but we still lose… usually because our one good player gets injured or sent off leaving us without any hope (Beckham Red Card ’98, Rooney Broken Metatarsal 2004, Rooney Red Card 2006) or defeated by a referee (Maradona’s ‘hand of god in 92 and in 2008 a ball crossing the line decision – okay Germany I guess that cancels out 1966?)

It’s a roller coaster ride being an England fan – hope, an injury scare, a shaky start, a good game or two and then that crushing defeat followed by the despair of being out. Shortly followed by… “maybe in two years we can do it, next time will be different”… right?

Well in 2010 I was living in the US and it was a World Cup year. Surprisingly, bars in San Francisco were overflowing with fans and the atmosphere was electric… but I was driving a German Car with a drinking habit so it was time for a change.

I considered a Corvette, another Porsche 911 (still German), a newer M3 (German and incredibly common in the Bay Area) and then my search brought me to a car that I had considered when I was living in the UK but had ruled out due to it’s size and poor fuel economy…. A British V8… a baby Aston Martin…. the Jaguar XK8.

And then I found it… a very clean Jaguar XKR Convertible. It was the Silverstone limited edition. 360bhp, 20″ Alloy wheels and factory GPS. A car that cost $100k when it was new and it was now in my price range.